Study: Women Prefer Men Who Can Make Them Laugh

Did you know that women prefer men who can make them laugh to those who are not so funny? According to a new report, they really do, and what is even more – women perceive men with good sense of humor as more intelligent and more suitable for a long-term relationship. Throughout the history, ladies have always been looking for an intelligent type of a man, and have given more preference to those who could put a smile on their face, as opposed to the business serious type, said Kristofor McCarty, psychologist and a researcher at Northumbria University in Newcastle, England, and a lead author of the new study. This happens, McCarty explained, because women equal wit with intelligence, which, in their opinion, makes the potential partner a better bet for stable family life, since he would always be able to figure out how to get out of problems.

McCarty’s survey involved 45 heterosexual women with the ages between 18 and 30. All the participants were asked to rate various self-descriptions of men, who had applied to lonely-hearts advertisements. The scientist invented the fictional lives of ten men and then created a funny and slightly funny profiles from each of their perspectives. Afterwards, the women were offered to read all 20 descriptions and report their preference on qualities such as likeliness of friendship, likeliness of long-term relationship, honesty and intelligence. After analyzing all the results, the experts found that the significant majority of ladies who took part in the experiment, appeared to be attracted to men with good sense of humor, and thought it was an essential feature for a strong relationship. The men in the humorous ads were rated as more intelligent in spite of the fact that there were no descriptions that contained their IQ levels. They were also believed to be more honest and better financially secure for a relationship or a friendship, the study found.

Previous studies in evolutionary psychology have shown that for a long-term relationship women appreciate and value much more when a man is able to acquire resources, such as earning a good salary, for example. That idea recalls the early days of humans, when women relied on men’s resources during childbearing years. A more intelligent person is less likely to fall into traps, McCarty wrote, and may be more able to provide for a partner and future kids. But Mr. McCarty sent his warning to men, saying that in order to attract a woman’s attention, they should not just concentrate to be funny and joke on anything that comes first to mind. He said that according to the new findings, the humor must be genuinely funny, and only in this case women rate men as more intelligent.

However, as to men – they do not pay so much attention to a woman’s smartness. It turns out that when a man says that he enjoys a presence of a woman with a good sense of humor, he really prefers the one that will laugh at his jokes. “A man wants a woman who laughs at his jokes and is not too bothered if his girl is not funny at all,” Mr. McCarty said. The research was presented this week at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference in Brighton, England.

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